New Year's Eve concert includes American music, surprises

Peter Gillies will perform his last concert with the Army Materiel Command Band on New Year's Eve along with the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra. (File photo)

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama - If you’re looking for a way to send 2012 out in style, the Huntsville Symphony Orchestra has the concert for you. The HSO along with the U.S. Army Materiel Command Band will present “New Year’s Eve – The American Way” on Dec.31 at 7:30 p.m. at the Von Braun Center Mark C. Smith Concert Hall.

The concert will include “all your American favorites, Copland, Bernstein, Sousa, just to name a few,” the HSO’s conductor and music director Gregory Vajda said in an email from Budapest, Hungary, where he was recently named principal conductor of the Hungarian Radio Symphony. The concert also brings the two groups – the HSO and the AMC Band – to the stage in a collaboration that has been in the works for a year.

“We are constantly seeking opportunities to collaborate with other arts organizations and having the AMC band on stage with us for New Year’s Eve is the perfect opportunity,” Vajda said. The program will include pieces by the AMC Band alone, the HSO alone and the two bands together.

“It is going to be a lot of fun, I can guarantee that,” Vajda said. That fun could include some hijinks from Vajda, who last year appeared on stage as Harry Potter. “All I can say is get ready for some fun surprises this year, too,” he said.

The concert, which will end before 10 p.m., is also “the perfect pre-party concert,” Vajda said. Audience members can use the event as a way “to kick off the evening that leads up to the countdown at midnight and to your choice of partying before and after.”

The concert will also be the last public performance with the AMC Band for its commander, Peter Gillies. The chief warrant officer is set to retire in February after 23 years in the Army, 17 of which he has lead Army bands. He has been the commander of the AMC Band since May 2010.

“I tell people I wear two hats,” Gillies said. “One is band master, the musical side of the house, and then a military hat” in which he is responsible for the training and physical fitness of the 40 soldiers under his command. “Everyone in the band has basic soldier skills and has to keep current on weapons qualifications as well as all the music stuff we do,” he said. Like all members of the military, the band members can be reassigned and required to move as the needs of the Army dictate, Gillies said.

Since the band’s arrival in Huntsville, the AMC Band has been active in the community, performing at the Concerts in the Park during the summer and at many public functions. The collaboration with the symphony is another way to be a part of the community.

Although this will be Gillies last concert with the band, unless another function for the Army arises, Gillies will continue to be a part of Huntsville’s music scene. He plans to stay in Huntsville following his retirement and continue teaching tuba and other classes at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and at Columbia College on Redstone Arsenal. He is also active in several musical groups around town.

Performing the last time with the AMC Band will be a little emotional, Gillies said, “but I’m not leaving music.” The HSO concert will also be a great experience for his band and introduce some of his members to new music and a different kind of performance.

“I try to get any opportunities to do new music and experiences for the members of the band,” Gillies said. “I can’t imagine a better venue and a better group to perform to go out with.

For more information on the concert or to order tickets, visit hso.org.